


Nature Abhors a Vacuum

by AnonEhouse



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Iron Man 3 Spoilers, Post Iron Man 3, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 19:36:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of Iron Man 3, Tony Stark is a changed man. Well, he's working on it, with Pepper's help. It's not easy being a superhero. Steve visits them in their vacation home-away-from-home. Pepper surprises him with an unusual request.</p><p>*note* At the time of writing this, Captain America 2: Winter Soldier hasn't been finished & I've seen no trailers, just a few stills & read a few vague publicity blurbs, so while I vaguely reference events that MIGHT take place in that movie, it's hardly spoilery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nature Abhors a Vacuum

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

"Oh, there you are Steve," Pepper said as she rounded the corner of the kitchen island.

"Um, yes?" Steve said, pulling back out of the refrigerator with a half watermelon in his arms. "Tony said to help myself." Pepper made an airy gesture which Steve took to mean, sure, so he set the melon down on the cutting board and began carving off chunks. The melon smelled like vodka, which... didn't really surprise him. He tried a chunk. Tasted like vodka, too. Not bad. He continued slicing. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes, but I think I'd better wait until you haven't got a knife in your hands." Pepper smiled, but Steve thought she did look a little apprehensive.

He laid the knife down and wiped his hands on a towel. "Ok, so... what is it?" When Pepper had invited him to join her and Tony and Bruce in their 'temporary' quarters in [western North Carolina](http://www.dundalemountainhomes.com/) he'd been of two minds. He could use a rest, but would being in _Tony's_ house be restful, even if it was in the mountains? Turned out it was a pretty nice place. He could tell right away that Tony hadn't designed it; it was... kinda cozy.

"Would you mind sleeping with me and Tony while Bruce is away?"

"What?" He couldn't have heard right. It took a moment to sink in, first that Pepper and Tony and Bruce? How did that even... and no, he wasn't going to think about that. They were his friends and he didn't want to think about them like that.

Pepper laughed. "Oh, I knew you'd take it that way. I meant _sleep_. Tony's worried that he'll hurt me." She rolled her eyes as if to express the absurdity of the idea. "He was having a hard time after that mess in New York, and then that business with... well, you know."

Steve nodded. He'd heard about most of it after the fact, since he'd been kinda busy what with... well... events... of his own. Natasha had filled in some details; apparently Tony had a kinda breakdown, and then got kicked out of it by an enemy attacking everyone and everything he loved. Steve understood that well enough. You lose everything, you kick and you scream and maybe you cry a little when no one's watching, and then you get up and carry on. And if you're really, really lucky, maybe some of what you lost comes back to you. "Yeah."

"So, he doesn't sleep if I'm not there because he worries about me. But if I _am_ there, he worries he's going to have another attack and try to kill me again." 

"WHAT?"

"Sorry. I meant not that he already killed me, that was Killian, and I didn't quite die, and," Pepper laughed. "I'm more nervous than I realized, I must sound like Tony. Well, he'd made armor that he could control from implants along his nervous system and he had... well, call it a nightmare. The armor went into defense-mode, and since I was next to Tony... well..."

"Jesus," Steve said, imagining one of Tony's armors attacking Pepper while she slept. "Were you hurt?"

"No, but of course, I couldn't stay there with Tony. He was so upset that we were both afraid if I stayed he'd have another...nightmare."

Steve was beginning to get the idea. "My father came back from the war with 'nightmares'. He used to blame them, and the drink, but sometimes he knew what he was doing when he hurt us."

Pepper put her hand on Steve's arm. "Tony would never, never, deliberately hurt me. But he wasn't... still isn't... completely in control of that. Sometimes he does things before he snaps out of it. I'm not afraid of him, really, Tony can't hurt me, but I can't convince him of that. By accident--well, jet lag plus Tony talking Bruce's ear off, we found out that when Bruce slept in the same bed with us, Tony could relax. He knew that Bruce couldn't be hurt, and his Other Guy wouldn't let Tony hurt me. We, Tony and I, trust you the same as we do Bruce. So, if you don't mind..."

"I don't know." Steve was a normal, healthy guy and Pepper was awfully pretty. He wouldn't _do_ anything, of course, but his body wouldn't know that. He felt his face heat. "I..."

"Steve, really, you'd be doing us a big favor. When Bruce got called away Tony said he was going to take sedatives, but that's not healthy. He's not fully recovered from his operation."

"All right." So Steve would be uncomfortable, it wouldn't kill him. It couldn't be much more embarrassing than kissing crying babies while wearing sequined tights.

***

Actually, it wasn't as awkward as Steve had imagined if would be. Tony and Pepper were both wearing reasonably modest sleep wear, and Tony made no remarks about Steve's own blue plaid flannel pajamas. They all settled into the ridiculously large bed, with Pepper on one side and Tony in the middle, to watch the evening news on a big TV set in the far wall, with the volume low. Tony fell asleep a few minutes after they got in bed, and Pepper soon muttered a sleepy 'Goodnight, Steve' and cuddled against Tony's back to follow him.

Steve lay there for a few minutes, listening to the soft breathing, and feeling their warmth. He wasn't jealous, not exactly. He thought Pepper ought to be put up for sainthood for sticking with Tony despite his childishness, but he supposed some women liked to have a guy they could boss around and mother; so maybe she'd not minded it so much. Steve didn't want a woman who'd treat him that way, but then, he wasn't Tony.

He wondered what he did want. Peggy had been wonderful and he sure would have liked to have danced with her, and got to know her outside of the war, but he wasn't sure they would have made a go of it. Would have been nice to have tried. But that was before he lived through being frozen. They hadn't expected the serum to do that- he thought he'd just been fixed up, not..whatever it did. He didn't know if there were other surprises, maybe something terrible. He wasn't going to ask anyone to hitch themselves to him, not for the long run.

No, he'd just take each day as it came, try to find the good parts of today's world and learn to stop putting a rosy glow over the past. He couldn't go back, and even if he did, _he_ was different. He shut off the television. Today wasn't so bad. Bucky was alive. He didn't let himself think about that too much during the day. Bucky was alive, and Natasha was with him at SHIELD. Bucky hadn't wanted Steve to stay while they debriefed him on everything he could remember of the Winter Soldier, and Steve didn't want to make things harder on him, so he'd finally accepted one of the weekly 'come visit' emails from Tony. Or maybe they were from Pepper. It didn't matter, they were TonyandPepper. Which was nice for them. Really.

Steve had learned during the war how to fall asleep no matter what. Just stop worrying and sleep. Problems never get solved by staying awake. Tony would probably disagree, but what did he know? Steve let himself fall.

***

It was cold. Steve was so cold he felt as if his skin and flesh were made of air and the cold went right through to his bones, to his marrow, expanding and cracking from the inside, ice-shards spreading like frost on a window pane. He wasn't in the plane, in the ice, in the water. He was in a cold, cold, steel box, but the front of it was glass-ice. The Red Skull was wearing a lab coat and looking in at him, and somehow that lipless face was smiling at him. And he couldn't move. His left arm was a dead weight. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the dull gleam of steel.

The Red Skull was gloating and whispering in Steve's ear, telling him the only warmth lay in killing, that he needed hot blood to melt the ice. It made sense. And Steve was so very cold. He lifted his numb arm and smashed the ice/glass. Schmidt had blood, the same blood that Steve had. He'd take Schmidt's blood and then he'd be fixed, he'd be warm, he'd never be cold again.

He tightened his grip, and it was working. Schmidt thrashed a bit, got away for a second, and then he took hold again, and felt the warmth. It was good. He held on and watched his arm soften, turn back to human. Schmidt's voice changed, too.

"Steve. Steve. Wake up. It's all right. Wake up."

Schmidt never called him Steve. Steve blinked, and blinked again. He was kneeling on a bed facing Schmidt who matched his pose... no. The red was different, beneath the skin, dancing in the eyes- her eyes. It was Pepper. She was holding him with her hands, seemingly effortlessly. She was glowing, and so warm he was sweating where she touched him. He swallowed hard.

"I think Steve should come with us to family therapy."

Steve looked down. Lying flat on his back, squashed between Steve and Pepper, Tony looked up at Steve. He waggled his fingers. "You know, once you start talking to them, it's not so bad. EMDR sounds like voodoo medicine, but it seems to help. Or, you know... there's other things." Tony stopped talking and looked at Steve expectantly.

"What?" Steve said to Pepper. His Tony-to-human translator wasn't working at the moment. Belatedly he realized he was holding Pepper's arms, and released them. "I'm sorry. I'm... did I hurt you?"

Pepper smiled at Steve. "No, I'm fine. I told you Tony couldn't hurt me. Neither can you."

Tony said, "We traded off, Pepper's the superhero now, and I'm the stay-at-home-dad." 

Pepper giggled and reached down to ruffle Tony's hair. "Not yet, you're not."

Tony patted Pepper's thigh, which was all he could reach from that position. "We're working on it."

Steve rewound the conversation in his mind. It still didn't make sense. 

"Pepper, I think we broke Captain America," Tony said. 

"No, I'm not broken," Steve said. He got up from the bed. "But I don't think this was a very good idea. I never... I didn't know I might do that. I don't... I always sleep alone."

Tony hitched up onto his elbows."What a waste of..." 

Pepper tossed a pillow at him. "Not helping, Tony."

"Yeah, I know." Tony scrunched up his face and then shrugged. "Its just, you know, I'm finding out what it feels like to be happy and I'd like to share the feeling."

Steve looked at Tony for a long moment. "You're happy, but you're not Iron Man any longer." He turned to Pepper. "And does...that..." he said, indicating the faint flickering of red beneath her skin, "make you happy?" Pepper didn't answer him, but her expression told it all. "I think you can't have both. And the country needs Captain America a lot more than it needs a happy Steve Rogers." He started to walk away and then he turned back. "If you can't sleep without a chaperone, I'll get you a teddy bear, Tony." He walked back to the guest room and began packing. It wouldn't take long, he'd barely taken anything out.

"We didn't plan this," Pepper said from the doorway. "Natasha said you needed a break, and with Bruce gone, it seemed like a good idea."

Steve nodded without looking up. "I know. But you can't take away my nightmares. I need them."

"Captain America needs them," Pepper said. "What does Steve Rogers need?"

"It doesn't matter. Steve Rogers... he's been gone a long time." Steve sat down on his bed. "He wouldn't know what to do with happiness if it bit him."

Pepper sighed. "You're as stubborn as Tony. Will you wait until morning at least? The road is tricky at night."

"All right."

"I could have got rid of the Extremis," Pepper said after a long pause. "But Tony will always have enemies, so I wouldn't let him do it. Good night, Steve."

Steve waited until her footsteps faded away before he took his shield out and sat by the window waiting for the sun to rise. Somewhere out there, he just knew Schmidt still existed and one day would return. He ran his hand back and forth over the edge of the shield. Captain America had to be here to face him.


End file.
